1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to extenders for aircraft pallets.
2. Background Prior Art
Cargo is commonly carried in aircraft holds which are situated in the lower part of the aircraft fuselage below the passenger compartment on flat light metal pallets supported on guide rails in the hold. Because of the outward curvature of the fuselage above the pallet the cargo stacked on the pallet cannot occupy fully the hold space. Pallet extenders have been developed to extend the cargo carrying area of the pallet into the curved sides of the hold. Difficulties arise with known forms of extender in that they tend to be suitable only for aircraft of similar diameter fuselages and are not readily adaptable to different aircraft. Moreover certain known extenders actually creat voids with the fuselage which cannot be used thus reducing the benefit which they seek to obtain. Examples of such extenders are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,475,704, issued to Marom, et al. on Oct. 9, 1984; British Patent Application No. GB 2,157,647A of Thorpe, published Oct. 30, 1985; and PCT Patent Application No. PCT/AU84/00187 of Jones, et al., published Mar. 28, 1985 under No. WO 85/01263.